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Monday, 15 September 2014

Smash Bro's 3DS Impressions

We here at the GK UK towers have been rather distracted by Destiny (review coming soon) but a little gem appeared in our inbox that has managed to steal a lot of time away from the MMO-like Shooter and the fact that it's a only a demo is rather impressive.

Himaru catpured this image

We among several other Club Nintendo members have received a special demo of the upcoming Smash Bro's for 3DS to celebrate the games Japanese release date. There will be a public demo in a few days but that demo like other eShop demos will have a play limit.

Content
So what's in the demo? 5 characters; Mario, Link, MegaMan, Villager, and Pikachu. 2 game modes; Single and Local MP. 1 level with two forms; classic and final destination. What's not in the demo? a lot of characters, All but one of the match types, Trophies and alternative costumes. It's a reasonable demo content wise. Most fighting games only give you 2 characters, 1 level and that's it. All the game's features are there. Items, Final Smash and sudden deaths are all present.

Graphics
I'm sure by now you've seen the 3DS versions pseudo-cell shaded art style, The black lines do help with keeping track of you character and stops then blending in with the back ground. This is a blessing as Smash's frantic gameplay isn't a natural fit for the 3DS small screen. However it wasn't that much of an issue when I was using my regular 3DS and the larger XL model with have even less of an issue.
Overall the game looks mighty fine on the 3DS, the character models look fantastic and the level match that quality.Gameplay
The game runs perfectly on the 3DS, Animations are perfectly smooth even with the 3D on, Constantly running at 60 FPS. Whilst secondary characters (Pokemon/assist trophies) run only at 30FPS but frankly, if they are on the screen you have other issues than it's not as smooth as you, So you wont notice it.

The core gameplay remains largely the same all though everything has receive a rebalancing. The games speed is faster than Brawl's "thoughtful" speed but slower than Melee's "twitchy" speed which seems to give the game a "best of both worlds" feel. It's slow enough for you to counter attacks but fast enough for you to exploit openings. The new item's work as advertised Mario Kart's dreaded Blue Shell makes it's Smash début and works how you would expect. One weapon that caught me completely off guard was the beetle from Skyward Sword. This (trolling) weapon grabs your opponent and calmly lifts them off the screen killing them.

Verdict

A fantastic taste of what's to come,

Has completely crushed my fears of it being 2nd rate.

The demo also raises questions like what dose connecting to the Wii U version do?

Images from Japan suggest that the 3DS version can be used as a controller for the Wii U version.

I'm congindent with the demo to say...

Smash Bro's can be preorded for 3ds HERE for £31.85 and for Wii U HERE for £39.85